The Asylum
by hiddendaisy1821
Summary: Once known as a great man, a man of intellect and unrelenting need for truth, now nothing more than a silent observer of what has become his everyday life. Moriarty killed himself but instead of making Sherlock jump he let him live with the consequence.


**Title**: The Asylum

**Summary**: Once known as a great man, a man of intellect and unrelenting need for truth, now nothing more than a silent observer of what has become his everyday life. Moriarty killed himself but instead of making Sherlock jump he let him live with the consequence.

**AN:** Post Reichenbach falls.

-SH-

We are always alone, but our demons make for an ugly company. It is them we must fight to persevere in this reality and challenge our future.

Once known as a great man, a man of intellect and unrelenting need for truth, now nothing more than a silent observer of what has become his everyday life. Here people do not admire him nor do they run scared of what his canny eye can divulge from their presence and rattle their uncertain ground.

In this silence his mind works, brilliantly one might add, but confides of these walls make him nothing more than those who occupy the same space with him.

He must constantly repeat that it is for the best, it's all for their safety. Yes, the once great detective Sherlock Holmes, reduced to pale and rusty walls with the silent voice that scream every night through the halls of this institution. It is for the best after all.

An asylum.

Perhaps it's a place where he fits in best. The outcast and misunderstood, with reality distorted into something else, in some cases beautiful trait only the individual can see. Yes, he will fit in quite well.

The room filled with people and yet empty and void of everyday life. Here, the calm whispers a different set of rules that are needed for you to survive and hope that in the time that comes you still hold a shred of humanity that you brought when you came. The isolation from this place can only keep you sane for so long, but it's the beginnings that are always the most difficult, the change and the atmosphere that this place brings with itself can break a weaker man.

Sherlock is not a weak man.

Sometimes considered insane, a nut and a million others colorful adjectives but never weak. No, he is a man that fights for what he believes the truth to be and will push until such is attained. The question that stands to reason is... Why didn't he fight now?

Well, obviously the notorious 'consulting criminal' had him cornered, as much as he didn't like to admit to it. The loss that still stings, still hurts. His friends under threat and even though he doesn't like to feel this concern it's still there and to be honest the trials that followed in the court he just couldn't be bothered with.

And so when they found him there with the professor's brain matter all over the concrete, his reputation might as well have been there with it after the fiasco of the last case, because he acted like a good ol' dog and followed all of the Moriarty's bread crumbs until he had nowhere to go but down. To think that even after his death he causes him so much grief is utter theatrics and still they couldn't have been avoided.

Somehow among all that mess there was still enough of probable cause to put him here. Theatrics, he thinks, if they really wanted me here they could've put me long before all this happened. Like this it just looks like a grand finale from the ever illusive consulting criminal.

But surely if he were still among the living he would insure Sherlock never stepped out of a prison cell ever again. This way, his lawyer suggested they plead insanity. It wasn't that big of a stretch. Mycroft reluctantly agreed, for the time being, pulling all of his connections to move him to the most expensive private psychiatric clinic in the city.

The room in itself wasn't so bad, what to say, there were beds, chairs, walls and windows. All of them designed to lull you in a false sense of security. Make the patients feel connected. It fools no one.

More than anything, the pale walls resound a defeat of one's person. Normal becomes nothing more than a word, that the so called patients have a grasp on some form of reality. It isn't necessary in any shape or form. All it needs to represent is failure. Failure to make it as a human being, as a corporate puppet and a devoted follower. Failure to be boring.

For God's sake at least people here don't try to hide what they are or what they know. Every one of them has a certain gift to see and understand something that no one else can, just like him.

He should feel right at home…for the time being.

Next to him, a middle aged man, balding, eyes absent, fingers drumming to a nonexistent beat, oblivious to anyone around him. The fire is still there, a focus on something only he deems important. Light twitch of the head to the right. A pianist. Classical music, played in an orchestra, carrier lasted more than a decade. A light tremor follows up his arm. An alcoholic, lost it to the bottle, the pressure of performing. The motion of his fingers is uninterrupted. Meaning, he balanced the two for a long period of time. Probably cracked under pressure. Ah, shame, another talent lost.

Sherlock shrugged, turned away towards the window, hands in his pockets.

How he hates to lose. The battle of wits that had him reaching for the white flag is utterly ridiculous. Even if Moriarty's move was over, he was far from it.

The game was still on.

-SH-


End file.
